CHAPTER XLV 
THE GREAT SOUTHERN CONTINENT 
The Far South waited much longer for the attention 
of mankind than the Arctic regions. Antarctica has had 
no dwellers on the threshold, no demigod clearing its 
circle on Sleipner or any other fabled horse, no Norsemen 
daring its icy solitudes, scarcely even a tradition ; although 
the anonymous Franciscan, in the fourteenth century, when 
he was in Prester John's country, heard that the four rivers 
of Paradise flowed from an inaccessible mountain of great 
height at the south pole 1 . 
The Antarctic regions were first approached by Euro- 
peans by following the coast line of the continent which 
stretches furthest south. Magellan, with that indomitable 
perseverance which characterised him, continued, in spite 
of all difficulties, to force his wav south until he dis- 
covered the strait which led him into the Pacific Ocean. 
After that it was the contrary winds, driving ships to 
the south, which led to further discoveries in an Antarctic 
direction. The next Spanish fleet which passed through 
the Strait after Magellan was under the command of 
Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, with Sebastian del Cano as 
second in command. Seven vessels sailed from Coruna 
in 1525, one of the smallest being the St Lesmes, with 
Francisco de Hozes as captain. This little craft of 80 tons 
was blown out of the strait, and driven down as far south 
as 55°, sighting land, the eastern end of Staten Island. 
Adverse gales also drove Sir Francis Drake to new dis- 
coveries. In October, 1578, he thus unintentionally fell 
in with "the uttermost part of lands towards the South 
Pole." The latitude was 56°S. and "there was no 
maine nor iland to be seen to the southwards; the 
Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meeting in a most large 
and free scope." Drake named this southern cape of the 
1 Book of the Knowledge of all the Kingdoms, p. 35 (Hakluyt Society, 
Series II, vol. xxix, 1912.) 
